So here we are, February 7th, 2008.
The inaugural post of Jeremy's blog.
This isn't my first, actually.
The old one was at http://www.xanga.com/jcrigler
New today :
My senior engineer, also called Point Of Entry or POE, finally got his birthday surprise.
He turned the big five-oh on Friday and said, "you know, I've been alive for half a century, I think I deserve a day off."
Monday afternoon (he was sick Monday) my secretary and I filled his office with 170 black balloons.
I made a net from crepe paper streamers to hold them all at desk level and higher.
When he walked in this morning, he navigated his way to his cubicle, and walked right into them.
I felt kinda bad for the guy, his first day back from being sick for a week, still coughing, just wanting to get a lot of work caught up...
He made the mistake of ripping the net, spilling the balloons all under his desk.
Now we've got a 50-year old man crawling around on his hands and knees stabbing away at balloons.
Other fun news :
I got tasked to grind part numbers off cable cutters and etch new ones in their place.
A cable cutter is...well...just that.
It's a small yet heavy piece of precision-machined stainless steel that contains a wedge blade contained within a foil-sealed cylinder driven by a piston activated by a special 44-caliber blank round screwed in one end.
These bad boys have a groove in which lies a cable 2500 feet in length that holds a sonar buoy used in tracking submarines.
The whole thing (sans submarine) is contained within and operated by a Navy variant of a Black Hawk.
These devices that I'm scratching with my Dremel run about 150$ a pop and fit conveniently in the palm of your hand.
Finally, I got to do some REAL work!
We had a BEAUTIFUL sunset this evening composed of a brilliant sun on a crystal clear blue sky with 70* temperatures.
I am the only one here praying for snow.
This is not February.
As I left the house off to my sunset photoshoot, I was startled by the neighborhood cat.
It is ridiculously skittish, yet I left it a bowl of milk, so we'll see how that goes.
The shopping plaza on the mainland has an unusual population of cats as well.
The other night during my routine visit to Blockbuster, I walked around to the back of the building and found at least eight fully grown cats, just loppin' around.
They were all equally skittish.
I recently gave up my obsessive habit of buying every eye-pleasing new release DVD at Wal-Mart and got the Blockbuster movie pass.
This sounds like an advertisement, but holy cow, 24$ for all those movies.
I got too tired to finish this post last night, and fortunately, it saved it as a draft.
Update on the cats :
I have two or three living under my house.
You've heard Foxworthy say, "you might be a redneck if your front porch collapses and kills more than three dogs."
Well, my house is definitely sagging pretty bad, and there's at least two cats under it.
I saw them when I pulled up this evening from work.
I made another bowl of milk (they drank the first one) and left it out back, viewable through the back door.
I got really close to one of them, but they're far too shy.
Wedging the back door open with a propane tank, one of them actually made his way in my screened back porch to get some more milk outside my back door.
I've got a beautiful black one with gold eyes, an orange and white one, and a really big white and gray one. The gray one does not get along with the others.
All but the gray one seem to have one cut or torn ear, which made me sad.
I really want a kitten to play with around the house.
At least I have some locals to entertain me.
It was a pretty nice day down here, hopefully decent back home.
Anyone know someone who wants a summer job on the coast, we're accepting applications.
Contact me for the details.
Pictures to follow in the next post.
Bye for now!
Jeremy
